How A Trip To San Francisco Can Change Your Perspective

A few months back, I was told by a few people to take a holiday. Without any real plan, I booked flights to San Francisco and LA. Having never traveled to the US before, I wasn’t sure what to expect or how the country would make me feel at the end of my trip.

When I arrived in downtown San Francisco, the city felt strangely like Melbourne where I’m from. On the first day, I hired a bike and rode across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was only once I got near the coastline that the city felt very different.

The Golden Gate Bridge is work of art and no words can describe it. It’s simply beautiful and a marvel of modern day engineering. Getting to go over the bridge is an experience in itself. All of a sudden, all your worries and problems seem so far away, and all that matters is the current moment.

When I arrived on the other side of the bridge, I took a ferry back past Alcatraz which was a strange and eerie contrast. Everyone asked me why I never bothered to visit the island; the reason was that I don’t believe in celebrating criminal activity or spending time in dark places like a prison.

Our world is shaped by the things we choose to surround ourself with, and prison shouldn’t be one of those things. The more I explored San Fran, the greater my love for Australia became. It’s easy to think that the grass is always greener, but it’s not. As it turns out, I already live in one of the greatest cities in the world.

Below are the 5 things that changed my perspective after visiting the US:

1. Whenever there is hype beware (Silicon Valley)

For the last few years, everyone has told me how magical Silicon Valley is. I decided on this trip to find out for myself. When I arrived in Silicon Valley, it looked like any other friendly neighborhood. I thought I must have been not quite where the action was.

After hopping in an Uber, I drove through the streets into the so-called hotspots. What I saw was normal houses, next to traditional business parks that happened to have the world’s most famous tech logos stuck to the side of the building.

I gazed in wondering what magic was occurring inside and what the secret cool aid was that they were all drinking. Thankfully, I got my chance to get behind the closed doors and the private security that surround these buildings like a prison.

Don’t get me wrong; Silicon Valley creates some amazing things in our world, but these same ideas, products, and services can be created anywhere across the globe. The awesomeness that is created is not just possible in Silicon Valley; it’s possible anywhere. Silicon Valley just has a high concentration of very cool companies in one place.

2. San Fran business culture is phenomenal

There was definitely something in the water as I visited each of the famous San Fran companies such as Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn. If I had to link this good feeling to anything, I would say it’s probably that the employees feel they’re changing the world.

What they’re working on is the stuff of dreams, and they know it. It’s not about being better than each other but it’s about working together to do seriously cool stuff. There is no real sense of ownership, and you’re free to go off and try out an idea.

“Failure is celebrated, and the only must is innovation”

If your business is not growing, it’s dying in San Fran. Once high-growth products like Google Adwords are begin replaced, and nobody is negative about that fact.

Declining performance in certain products is expected, and as long as you’re building the next big thing, then it’s fine. San Fran isn’t about the location itself; it’s about the people who live and work there. The attitude of “anything is possible” is infectious.

The perceived downside to this attitude is that San Fran is full of elitist snobs that think they’re better than everyone else. I for one didn’t get a whiff of this vibe and think that this idea is more of a scarcity / jealousy mindset than anything else.

3. Beauty is all around us

One of my friends in San Fran commented that I was always making observations about the simplest things that he never notices. The way the traffic lights change, the way the trams look – everything was beautiful to me.

As soon as I returned home, the beauty of these same basic things was all of a sudden ignored again. I learned that if you see the beauty not just when you are in a new country, but when you are home, your perspective begins to change.

4. Homelessness is psychological

I was told to expect lots of homelessness, but the size of the problem was bigger than I imagined. I’ve seen homelessness before and got used to it. In San Fran, it wasn’t just that there were people who didn’t have a home; they were also mentally ill and shouted at people for no reason.

The problem is so big that it’s hard to ignore. Everywhere you go, you can’t avoid the issue. I found this to be a good thing because it taught me that problems shouldn’t be ignored, they should be solved. Everything I brought in San Fran had an extra tax. Initially, I had no idea why the advertised price always varied from what you paid until I asked (stupid me).

The extra tax was supposed to help the homeless people. I couldn’t see any sign of them being helped. It felt more like they were being ignored in the hope that they would take their problems elsewhere.

The lesson I learnt was that the homeless don’t need our money; they need psychological assistance if we really want to make a difference.

5. Being out of our comfort zone is a must

San Fran taught me that when I’m out of my comfort zone, I learn the most. It’s a nice feeling to have no idea where you’re going and to get lost once in a while. It’s funny too when you think that your destination is not far away until you discover how hilly San Fran can be in some parts.

Like with any downside, the upside was I got some much-needed exercise. I’m like a kid in a new city because I love to map things out in my mind and memorise where everything is. Within a few days, people were asking me for directions because they thought I was a local.

“Our comfort zone is where we are safe in the womb of life. Our real self is everything beyond that” – James Altucher

Strangely enough, I was able to tell them where to go. Pushing beyond our comfort zone allows us to see the world in a different way and interact with new kinds of people. I met many interesting characters during my travels that shared ideas with me that will forever change me.

The rush of excitement I got when I learned where the world was heading through technology is something that is hard to forget. Seeing people’s passion for changing the world one step at a time is the type of experience I was hoping to have from the start. Anything is possible as long as we collaborate and believe in humankind.

How are you going to change your perspective of the world for the better? Let me know on my website timdenning.net or my Facebook.

Tim is best known as a long-time contributor on Addicted2Success. Tim's content has been shared hundreds of thousands of times and he has written multiple viral posts all around success, personal development, motivation, and entrepreneurship. During the day Tim works with the most iconic tech companies in the world, as an adviser, to assist them in expanding into Australia. By night, Tim coaches his students on the principles of personal development and the fundamentals of entrepreneurship. You can connect with Tim through his website www.timdenning.net or through his Facebook.

4 Comments

Wow, we’re planning to go to san francisco next week. Good thing I found this article, it my first time to go there but not my first to go to the US though, last time I went there was back in 2009 at the East Coast. 🙂

Hello Tim! Firstly, thank you soooo very much for posting article about your Great American Adventure and sharing your photos with us! I loved the content and Golden Gate picture is epic! Also, you look like a badass with sunglasses, they fit you quite well haha 😀

I have to tell you I know exactly what you mean, by describing ‘all your worries and problems seem so far away’, as I have experienced that myself few times, and mostly it was trip-related, you feel free from everything and ready to conquer the world, or something similar. And yes man, you live in one of the most amazing country in the world, leave alone the city. In my childhood I have always dreamed to live there, don’t know why. I have read lots of good things and I believe Australia in the top list of the most wealthy, healthy and high standards places.

On the subject, I really connect with your ‘Beauty is all around us’ paragraph. I am exactly the same, it was eerily familiar when I read it because I act like this in a new places, amazed at everything, including trash bins, yet when I am back home I immediately turn on a resistant mode and ignore those simple thins I so loved while being at the different place. How weird huh? This urge to always move onto a new place so I can satisfy the level of dopamine, my very own pursuit of happiness. That’s a great thing to ponder on and meditate. My next session will be dedicated exactly to this thing. Thank you Tim.

And your point on homelessness is very spot on. it is indeed rather state of mind and the issue should be addressed at the right side, not being avoided or misunderstood. I mean, every single one of us can experience this, whether you have millions of dollars or not. It does not matter.

Our Achilles heel, the comfort zone. is always there to cuddle us and hide from the ‘danger’ of the world, making us fear more. James Altucher said it beautifully, I can confirm this – I rarely being my truly self, because I often under someone else’s skin. I must take all the steps to change that.

Tim, your article touched me deeply and I enjoyed all the pictures and lessons you gave. Thank you for being an amazing you, for your time and passion, for your love and care! I greatly appreciate that 🙂

Toño thanks for the kind words and glad you like the sunnies. San Fran is cool but I wouldn’t suggest you live there. You’ve picked up my key points really well and it’s cool you had a similar experience. I feel very lucky to live in Australia and to have the tools to avoid pitfalls like homelessness. Now it;s about helping others get that same experience.

Trying to Build Charisma? Pay Attention to How You Speak

Have you ever listened to yourself talking and said how on earth do I sound that terrible? Most of us don`t realize they have voice issues until we accidentally listen to our voice or seek professional help. But the truth is, 38 percent of your charisma comes from the way you talk.

The more appealing your voice is to people, the more trust they`ll put in you, but the opposite is also true. Stuttering, talking too fast, not breathing properly, can ruin your charisma and make people unable to enjoy your company.

Here are a few things you can do to sound more charismatic anytime you open your mouth:

Learn how to talk slowly

Talking fast is anti-charismatic. I was a fast talker, in fact, I was the quickest talker my debate team ever had – a teacher whispered to me fifteen years ago – and it drove me crazy until I did the right thing and hired a coach. What I learned later was so simple, yet so useful, and it helped me to this day control the rate at which I speak.

First off, you need to figure out your exact rate of speech. Get an article and record yourself reading it at your natural rate for 2-5 minutes. Now, divide the total number of words you`ve read over the total number of minutes and you`ll get your words per minute count “wpm.” If your rate exceeds 175 wpm then you, my friend, are a fast talker and we need to change that.

How? Pay attention to the rate at which most people talk, especially on TV and radio. You need to get a feeling for how fast you should speak and bring that feeling into your consciousness. Next, set some time every morning to read out loud. Practice the same article/passage you started with earlier until you can hold it to +160 wpm. Once you`re okay with it, move to different reading materials.

“Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.” – Theodore Roosevelt

The third step is to bring what you`ve practiced to you daily life. Each day, pick one person and dedicate the entire conversation to speaking at a controlled pace. If you`re in this with someone, ask them to stop you as soon as you begin to talk faster. When this happens, stop, adjust, and get back to your controlled pace. You may feel pretentious but stay on the line. The more you practice, the more comfortable you will feel.

Use the power of pausing

Charisma is the mix between being liked and being equally respected. You need to convey power and you need to convey warmth both at the same time. And you can do this using two simple tricks: First, start reducing how quickly you reply to people and add more pauses to your speeches. Whenever it`s your turn to speak, pause for a couple of seconds before saying your first word. The second trick is to lower your tone at the end of important sentences to make an impact. Simply raise your voice at the beginning of the last sentence then go downhill from there.

Warm up every morning

If you have a morning routine, which I recommend you do, then you should integrate a few exercises to warm up you voice for a stronger tone and better pronunciation. This is what any self-respected voice coach will tell you.

So how to warm up? There are many things to do, some of which are:

Blowing through your lips

Blowing through tongue

Doing circles with your tongue and touching all your teeth

Yawning to exercise your soft palate

Overcome indecisiveness

You can call him wicked, morally corrupt or dishonest but how do you think Donald Trump has got his way into the White House? You can`t deny the fact that without his unbelievable conviction, the man who spends more time on Twitter than presidents of the P5 group combined wouldn`t have beaten all the odds and won the election.

The world, my friend, is a place where your ideas can mean nothing without the conviction to back them up. Hell, you can have people follow your utter nonsense and call you a leader with enough confidence and a few sharp words sprinkled on top of it. Several studies found that people follow leaders for the faith they convey not the ideas they pose, so imagine if you have both the right ideas and the rock-solid conviction in them. You`ll rock the world and bend it to your will.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

From my research, there are three ways to induce conviction in your conversations: preparation, intonation, and controlled practicing.

Preparation: Rehearsing what you`ll say before important meetings will help you sound more confident. Pick three interesting topics to talk about as you leave home, it`ll only take five minutes.

Intonation: Elevate your pitch as you stress over important words and keep it down as you finish a major sentence. Notice the difference between the following phrases: You can`t talk to me this way. You can “NOT” talk to me this way… Ever. Same words but different degrees of power. By raising your voice as you say “NOT,” you force the other person to take your words seriously. Watch CNN and see how reporters use a wide range of tones as they speak. Mimic them.

Controlled practicing: The next time you`re out with your buddies, pick a topic you know nothing about and talk about it with absolute conviction as if you`re the baddest badass of that topic. Eight times out of ten, your friends will accept your POV without much resistance. Pick-up artists use this exercise to overcome indecisiveness, and there`s nothing to stop you from using it to build your confidence.

So, where to start? Obviously, the best thing to do is hire a voice coach. They will hold you accountable and make sure you do the exercises on time. Warren Buffett still has his Dale Carnegie public-speaking certificate hung on his wall because of how it improved his life.

But what if you can’t afford a coach? Then I suggest you at least do 5 minutes of warming up each morning and set aside 10 more for reading out loud. If you can guarantee those 15 minutes every day for a year, then I’m sure your charisma will multiply.

How do you build charisma? Comment below!

It’s Not Always About the Goal, Sometimes the Journey Is More Important

There is nothing wrong in setting a goal in life in order to help manifest your vision of yourself years from now. These goals serve as a challenge so you will push yourself to do better. The only problem is when you become too obsessed with the bigger picture and you tend to forget the small details. You end up stressing out on how to get to the end that you no longer enjoy the process.

It is easy to lose sight on the most important things in life if you obsess on the bigger goal that needs to be achieved. You spend too much time planning and thinking how to move forward. You force yourself to forget everything else just because you really want to reach a goal. Take a step back and ask yourself, “Am I still happy?” “What have I missed because I was very goal-oriented?”

Eventually, you will realize that even if you have achieved the bigger goals, you have not found true happiness. It seems like you have won, but deep inside, it feels empty.

Let us take people who are traveling for instance, everyone is too busy taking photos and looking good in them instead of enjoying the sites and the entire experience. The lesson is to stop taking control of everything and savor the moment. Put the camera down and soak in the beauty of the moment.

Here are 5 reasons why the journey you’re on is more important than the eventual goal:

1. Achieving goals doesn’t mean you are successful

One of the reasons why people obsess with what the future holds is because they think that achieving goals means they have succeeded in life. By constantly doing this, you anchor your entire existence on that goal. The moment you fail in achieving the goal, you think that you are a big failure, which is not true. If you enjoy the process, regardless of the outcome, you will still feel good. You have traveled, learned from your mistakes, met people and become inspired.

2. Life is about making memories

For instance, you are running a business. You have this idea that you can only call yourself successful if you have made lots of money. Whether it is in business or in life, creating memories is more important than raking in lots of income. It is about the people you have helped by employing them.

It is also about the customers who were satisfied because you cared for their needs. It is also about how you overcome the challenges with your entire team, along with the members of your family. These moments, big or small, create great memories. Cherish them and you will be happy.

“Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others.” – Rosa Parks

3. The plan won’t always be perfect

Again, there is nothing wrong in having a plan. It is great if you know where to go first and what to do next. However, this should come with the mentality that not all things will go as planned. Nothing will ever go the way they are meant to be. There are unexpected changes along the way.

The key is how you embrace things that happened not according to plan and still find meaning in them. Happiness is about going with the flow. It is about trusting that good things will surely come along the way. It is also in letting go of a rigid plan that you learn to embrace life in all its complexities and uncertainties.

The biggest problem when you are too obsessed in following a plan is that you are consumed with the idea that there is only one path. There is no other path towards success and you should stick with what you are already comfortable of. Along the way, you will feel too comfortable that you are no longer willing to take the risk.

You are too scared to step out of your current path. You don’t want to move away because you think it will derail the achievement of your goals. You are no longer excited in trying new things. Soon, your life becomes really dry and you won’t see the meaning of everything that you do.

“Step so far outside your comfort zone that you forget how to get back.”

5. It is about following your heart

Take a moment to reflect and think about the plan that you had right from the start. Is it really what you want, or are you just doing it because it is how success was defined by people around you? Delve deeper and listen to your heart.

You might be on a path that you don’t really want, but you are forced to be in. Listen to your heart’s desires and this will make you a better person. Learn how to follow your passion and let your heart guide you to the right path.

Ultimately, you will only feel happy if you know that you are doing what you really love. You will even learn how to not obsess on a goal because you are just savoring every moment in your life. You will also realize that whether or not you will achieve something really big, you will be just as happy and fulfilled.

Important reminders:

When traveling, don’t think about your social media posts, take photos for yourself and not for others. Better yet, take photos only when you have already cherished the place.

Learn how to appreciate the small things. Take a pause just to smell the fresh flowers on your way to work. Appreciate the smiles of children heading to school. Be happy that you still have a job and you have something important to do for the day.

Say thank you to people around you even for the smallest things that they have done. Always let them know just how much you appreciate them.

Create smaller goals in life. If you really cannot let go of the idea that there is a bigger plan to achieve, create smaller objectives that are achievable on a daily or weekly basis.

Give yourself time to reflect and just be quiet. Amid the bustling noise in the city or the stressful nature of your work, you still need time to take a pause and just be quiet for a few minutes each day. This allows you to enjoy the moment and look back at all the positive things that happened during the day.

Don’t be defined by one definition of success. You can always find success even in the smallest things. You must have different sources of happiness and don’t let yourself be tied up to one goal as it could be really heartbreaking should you not achieve that goal. Just be you and do what you do best.

How do you define success? Comment below as we are curious to know!

Just Failed? Lift Yourself Up With These 5 Encouraging Thoughts

Have you had a failure that made you not want to get out of bed? I’ve just come back from a public speaking contest where I was unable to make the next round. I practiced hard but was unable to come up with a satisfying message. I worked hard but it felt like my efforts were wasted.

I wanted to redeem myself immediately but knew I couldn’t. I would have to wait and live with the negative feelings for a year until the next contest. Big failures crush your self-esteem, your confidence and your drive. Your morale is depleted and you question your goals and your self-worth. Getting out of bed hurts and you don’t want to try again.

While staying in bed sounds nice, you have to get up. Even with failure stinging your heart, you have to keep moving towards the future.

Motivating yourself again is tough but here are a few things you can tell yourself to feel positive again:

1. Failure Was Bound To Happen

Everyone wants to avoid failure, but you cannot be successful without it. The road to success has a few failures, it’s unavoidable. Success is not the smooth journey people make it out to be.

Before my loss, I had been winning at other public speaking contests. I did get the feeling of invincibility, but unfortunately I knew this would not last. As much as I hate failure, it is part of life. You can’t keep succeeding without encountering failure. You were going to fail eventually. It doesn’t mean that you deliberately tried to fail, but it had to happen at some point.

“Success is measured by how high you bounce when you hit bottom.” – George S. Patton

2. There Will Be A Second Chance

Unless you quit chasing your dreams entirely, there will always be another chance to try again. It is difficult to accept after a big failure, but deep down you know it is true. Even though I lost the contest, I knew there would be another one next year. It’s a long wait but I would be able to compete and hopefully succeed where I previously failed. Life is long enough that there are multiple opportunities to reach your goal. Things can change and you may not be facing the same landscape that you faced before, but that doesn’t mean success is gone forever.

3. There Might Be Something To Learn

As much as we like learning from our successes, our failures still have lessons they can teach us. Revisiting your failure might give you insight into why things went the way they did, and how you can stop it from happening the next time. Failed to prepare as much as you believed? Attention divided due to other issues? Underestimated the obstacles you had to overcome?

I’ve done all of these and more, which has resulted in failures that I’m not proud of. I still take a look to see what I can change next time. Looking at these mistakes and being honest with myself hurts, but it helps me learn what I can do differently. Don’t let the opportunity to learn pass you by because it’s painful to reflect. If you know there is something you can do to improve, take it as a learning experience.

4. Stop Thinking “That Should Be Me”

I should have landed that sale. I should be the one holding the trophy. I should be experiencing success instead of that person. It’s easy to fall into that line of thinking, especially if you were extremely close to succeeding. You can’t help but think you deserve success instead of failure, but this traps you in the past. It makes you reimagine your failure into success, and it feels wonderful. You want to live in that world.

It’s not a good thought to have. By believing that you should have succeeded, you’re not moving forward. Your mind will be replaying that moment, convincing you that everyone else was wrong and you were right. It’s hard to resist and you will inevitably have that thought, but success is not about thinking about what should have been. It’s about working on what could be.

5. You Are More Than Your Failures

After failing at something you put all your effort in, you can feel pathetic. You would not have failed if you were competent, if you were the person you said you were. But since you didn’t succeed, you must not be as great as you thought. Public speaking is my specialty, and I am upset when I fail. I feel that if I’m not good at my specialty, I’m a failure. If I can’t be the best speaker in the room, my entire worth as a human is non-existent.

But failing doesn’t mean you’re incompetent. Everyone fails, even the successful people you idolize. Failing doesn’t mean you’re doomed to mediocrity, it just means that you have more work to do. You have succeeded before, which means you’re not as bad as you believe. Failure is not representative of your ability. You may have to change, but you never lost your potential.

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein

I’ve had to live with my failures for a long time, but every time I licked my wounds and prepared myself for the next opportunity to succeed. Failure always hurts, especially if it’s big. You question your ability and your chances to succeed in the future.

The good news is, there will always be another time to succeed. Failing is part of life, it happens, but you don’t have to fail the same way twice. Learn from your failures, know that it doesn’t define your ability and get your head out of the past. You didn’t succeed today, but there’s always tomorrow.

How do you recover from failure? Comment below!

4 Steps to Help You Create Radical Momentum in Your Life

Do you ever find yourself with a goal in mind and you know the actions needed to get there, but you just can’t seem to get yourself to act on them? Positive momentum is what propels you to act effortlessly. Momentum first starts in the mind. Like everything around us, it begins as a thought and ends as a tangible success.

Implementing the following steps will not only make reaching your goal more fun, super rewarding, and easier, but it will also make the journey the best part:

1. Get yourself in a great feeling state

Whenever you want to create new momentum in a venture, the first step is always to get into a great feeling state. It is the most effective way to open up neural pathways and creativity in your mind. Humans naturally gravitate toward the subjects in their life that feel the best. Use positive emotion to saturate the idea of what you want.

That simple task will create a magnetic pull in your mind to what you desire. The most fertile place to plant the seed of this new idea is excitement! Every positive emotion about what you want waters it and helps it blossom. Meditation and breathing exercises are powerful techniques that foster the clean mental slate needed to create.

Tim Ferriss described that 80% of top performers in athletics, entertainment, and business employ daily meditation practices. Put happiness first. The best part of the process is dreaming about your destination. It’s the desire that we get the most juice. Once you get there you’ll feel like “Now what?” and a new desire will be there to take its place.

“Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.” – Colin Powell

2. Go directly to the end goal

From a positive state, program where you desire to go into your mind. Visualize a clear destination. The clearer your mind can see it while maintaining that positive state, the more powerful the answer will light up within your brain. Inspiration comes from the excitement of mentally transporting yourself to the actualized achievement.

See it as a movie in your mind. Virtually see yourself there, feeling the positive emotions for as long as it feels good. Extensive airtime dreaming about your desire creates the momentum. Write notes as if you have what you want in the present tense. Say it as if you have acquired it already to begin conditioning your subconscious mind and emotions into the feeling of having it.

The wheels will begin turning because now your dream will have a minor physical representation of itself. This conditioning will eliminate sabotage and will instill a feeling of deservability the more it is done.

3. Appreciation as fuel

Appreciation is the greatest internal motivator. Whatever you appreciate the crap out of, you create more of. The more you dream about the desired outcome, the more compelled you will be to take action and the more often positive things will come your way. If you appreciate them, they will grow. The milestones will grow and your momentum will exponentially increase.

The inspiration for better ideas will flow to you along with far more energy to act on them. Steve Jobs said, “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” Appreciation is the path to loving every part of the journey. Being thankful for all positive gifts coming your way will condition you to receive vastly more.

You want to keep your inner monologue pure. The more you think and talk about something, the more momentum gets created. If you create negative momentum, it will work against you. If you begin to think negative thoughts about your desired outcome, it will begin to feel like stress. When it feels like stress, you won’t feel like taking action. That’s why appreciation is so vital- it will always help you feel good about your goal making the inspired action feel effortless.

“Change your expectation for appreciation and the world changes instantly.” – Tony Robbins

4. Letting it go

Overthinking kills momentum faster than anything. Give yourself a reprieve; life is about so much more than your goal anyway. Letting the subject go will bring a freshness to it in return. You avoid burnout and best of all create a more fulfilling life in other areas. Guiding your mind toward completely unrelated subjects will reset and refill your mental facilities.

Give yourself peace to find the clarity necessary to make the ideal decisions. This can come in the form of working out, taking a walk, going somewhere new, or anything that stimulates a different part of you!

Part of letting it go means keeping your ideas to yourself until they are solid in your mind. This allows them to stay clean from outside influence. Let go of the need to share your ideas before the momentum is powerful. The last component is taking each action in faith that you are on the way to your desire. Because what you are seeking, is also seeking you.

What are some things you do to create momentum in your life? Share with us below!

Trying to Build Charisma? Pay Attention to How You Speak

Have you ever listened to yourself talking and said how on earth do I sound that terrible? Most of us don`t realize they have voice issues until we accidentally listen to our voice or seek professional help. But the truth is, 38 percent of your charisma comes from the way you talk.(more…)

Marwan Jamal is a fitness and health blogger at healthline.com. He’s a great fan of the gym and a healthy diet. He follows the trends in fitness, gym, and healthy life and loves to share his knowledge through useful and informative articles.

4 Comments

Wow, we’re planning to go to san francisco next week. Good thing I found this article, it my first time to go there but not my first to go to the US though, last time I went there was back in 2009 at the East Coast. 🙂

Hello Tim! Firstly, thank you soooo very much for posting article about your Great American Adventure and sharing your photos with us! I loved the content and Golden Gate picture is epic! Also, you look like a badass with sunglasses, they fit you quite well haha 😀

I have to tell you I know exactly what you mean, by describing ‘all your worries and problems seem so far away’, as I have experienced that myself few times, and mostly it was trip-related, you feel free from everything and ready to conquer the world, or something similar. And yes man, you live in one of the most amazing country in the world, leave alone the city. In my childhood I have always dreamed to live there, don’t know why. I have read lots of good things and I believe Australia in the top list of the most wealthy, healthy and high standards places.

On the subject, I really connect with your ‘Beauty is all around us’ paragraph. I am exactly the same, it was eerily familiar when I read it because I act like this in a new places, amazed at everything, including trash bins, yet when I am back home I immediately turn on a resistant mode and ignore those simple thins I so loved while being at the different place. How weird huh? This urge to always move onto a new place so I can satisfy the level of dopamine, my very own pursuit of happiness. That’s a great thing to ponder on and meditate. My next session will be dedicated exactly to this thing. Thank you Tim.

And your point on homelessness is very spot on. it is indeed rather state of mind and the issue should be addressed at the right side, not being avoided or misunderstood. I mean, every single one of us can experience this, whether you have millions of dollars or not. It does not matter.

Our Achilles heel, the comfort zone. is always there to cuddle us and hide from the ‘danger’ of the world, making us fear more. James Altucher said it beautifully, I can confirm this – I rarely being my truly self, because I often under someone else’s skin. I must take all the steps to change that.

Tim, your article touched me deeply and I enjoyed all the pictures and lessons you gave. Thank you for being an amazing you, for your time and passion, for your love and care! I greatly appreciate that 🙂

Toño thanks for the kind words and glad you like the sunnies. San Fran is cool but I wouldn’t suggest you live there. You’ve picked up my key points really well and it’s cool you had a similar experience. I feel very lucky to live in Australia and to have the tools to avoid pitfalls like homelessness. Now it;s about helping others get that same experience.

Trying to Build Charisma? Pay Attention to How You Speak

Have you ever listened to yourself talking and said how on earth do I sound that terrible? Most of us don`t realize they have voice issues until we accidentally listen to our voice or seek professional help. But the truth is, 38 percent of your charisma comes from the way you talk.

The more appealing your voice is to people, the more trust they`ll put in you, but the opposite is also true. Stuttering, talking too fast, not breathing properly, can ruin your charisma and make people unable to enjoy your company.

Here are a few things you can do to sound more charismatic anytime you open your mouth:

Learn how to talk slowly

Talking fast is anti-charismatic. I was a fast talker, in fact, I was the quickest talker my debate team ever had – a teacher whispered to me fifteen years ago – and it drove me crazy until I did the right thing and hired a coach. What I learned later was so simple, yet so useful, and it helped me to this day control the rate at which I speak.

First off, you need to figure out your exact rate of speech. Get an article and record yourself reading it at your natural rate for 2-5 minutes. Now, divide the total number of words you`ve read over the total number of minutes and you`ll get your words per minute count “wpm.” If your rate exceeds 175 wpm then you, my friend, are a fast talker and we need to change that.

How? Pay attention to the rate at which most people talk, especially on TV and radio. You need to get a feeling for how fast you should speak and bring that feeling into your consciousness. Next, set some time every morning to read out loud. Practice the same article/passage you started with earlier until you can hold it to +160 wpm. Once you`re okay with it, move to different reading materials.

“Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.” – Theodore Roosevelt

The third step is to bring what you`ve practiced to you daily life. Each day, pick one person and dedicate the entire conversation to speaking at a controlled pace. If you`re in this with someone, ask them to stop you as soon as you begin to talk faster. When this happens, stop, adjust, and get back to your controlled pace. You may feel pretentious but stay on the line. The more you practice, the more comfortable you will feel.

Use the power of pausing

Charisma is the mix between being liked and being equally respected. You need to convey power and you need to convey warmth both at the same time. And you can do this using two simple tricks: First, start reducing how quickly you reply to people and add more pauses to your speeches. Whenever it`s your turn to speak, pause for a couple of seconds before saying your first word. The second trick is to lower your tone at the end of important sentences to make an impact. Simply raise your voice at the beginning of the last sentence then go downhill from there.

Warm up every morning

If you have a morning routine, which I recommend you do, then you should integrate a few exercises to warm up you voice for a stronger tone and better pronunciation. This is what any self-respected voice coach will tell you.

So how to warm up? There are many things to do, some of which are:

Blowing through your lips

Blowing through tongue

Doing circles with your tongue and touching all your teeth

Yawning to exercise your soft palate

Overcome indecisiveness

You can call him wicked, morally corrupt or dishonest but how do you think Donald Trump has got his way into the White House? You can`t deny the fact that without his unbelievable conviction, the man who spends more time on Twitter than presidents of the P5 group combined wouldn`t have beaten all the odds and won the election.

The world, my friend, is a place where your ideas can mean nothing without the conviction to back them up. Hell, you can have people follow your utter nonsense and call you a leader with enough confidence and a few sharp words sprinkled on top of it. Several studies found that people follow leaders for the faith they convey not the ideas they pose, so imagine if you have both the right ideas and the rock-solid conviction in them. You`ll rock the world and bend it to your will.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

From my research, there are three ways to induce conviction in your conversations: preparation, intonation, and controlled practicing.

Preparation: Rehearsing what you`ll say before important meetings will help you sound more confident. Pick three interesting topics to talk about as you leave home, it`ll only take five minutes.

Intonation: Elevate your pitch as you stress over important words and keep it down as you finish a major sentence. Notice the difference between the following phrases: You can`t talk to me this way. You can “NOT” talk to me this way… Ever. Same words but different degrees of power. By raising your voice as you say “NOT,” you force the other person to take your words seriously. Watch CNN and see how reporters use a wide range of tones as they speak. Mimic them.

Controlled practicing: The next time you`re out with your buddies, pick a topic you know nothing about and talk about it with absolute conviction as if you`re the baddest badass of that topic. Eight times out of ten, your friends will accept your POV without much resistance. Pick-up artists use this exercise to overcome indecisiveness, and there`s nothing to stop you from using it to build your confidence.

So, where to start? Obviously, the best thing to do is hire a voice coach. They will hold you accountable and make sure you do the exercises on time. Warren Buffett still has his Dale Carnegie public-speaking certificate hung on his wall because of how it improved his life.

But what if you can’t afford a coach? Then I suggest you at least do 5 minutes of warming up each morning and set aside 10 more for reading out loud. If you can guarantee those 15 minutes every day for a year, then I’m sure your charisma will multiply.

How do you build charisma? Comment below!

It’s Not Always About the Goal, Sometimes the Journey Is More Important

There is nothing wrong in setting a goal in life in order to help manifest your vision of yourself years from now. These goals serve as a challenge so you will push yourself to do better. The only problem is when you become too obsessed with the bigger picture and you tend to forget the small details. You end up stressing out on how to get to the end that you no longer enjoy the process.

It is easy to lose sight on the most important things in life if you obsess on the bigger goal that needs to be achieved. You spend too much time planning and thinking how to move forward. You force yourself to forget everything else just because you really want to reach a goal. Take a step back and ask yourself, “Am I still happy?” “What have I missed because I was very goal-oriented?”

Eventually, you will realize that even if you have achieved the bigger goals, you have not found true happiness. It seems like you have won, but deep inside, it feels empty.

Let us take people who are traveling for instance, everyone is too busy taking photos and looking good in them instead of enjoying the sites and the entire experience. The lesson is to stop taking control of everything and savor the moment. Put the camera down and soak in the beauty of the moment.

Here are 5 reasons why the journey you’re on is more important than the eventual goal:

1. Achieving goals doesn’t mean you are successful

One of the reasons why people obsess with what the future holds is because they think that achieving goals means they have succeeded in life. By constantly doing this, you anchor your entire existence on that goal. The moment you fail in achieving the goal, you think that you are a big failure, which is not true. If you enjoy the process, regardless of the outcome, you will still feel good. You have traveled, learned from your mistakes, met people and become inspired.

2. Life is about making memories

For instance, you are running a business. You have this idea that you can only call yourself successful if you have made lots of money. Whether it is in business or in life, creating memories is more important than raking in lots of income. It is about the people you have helped by employing them.

It is also about the customers who were satisfied because you cared for their needs. It is also about how you overcome the challenges with your entire team, along with the members of your family. These moments, big or small, create great memories. Cherish them and you will be happy.

“Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others.” – Rosa Parks

3. The plan won’t always be perfect

Again, there is nothing wrong in having a plan. It is great if you know where to go first and what to do next. However, this should come with the mentality that not all things will go as planned. Nothing will ever go the way they are meant to be. There are unexpected changes along the way.

The key is how you embrace things that happened not according to plan and still find meaning in them. Happiness is about going with the flow. It is about trusting that good things will surely come along the way. It is also in letting go of a rigid plan that you learn to embrace life in all its complexities and uncertainties.

The biggest problem when you are too obsessed in following a plan is that you are consumed with the idea that there is only one path. There is no other path towards success and you should stick with what you are already comfortable of. Along the way, you will feel too comfortable that you are no longer willing to take the risk.

You are too scared to step out of your current path. You don’t want to move away because you think it will derail the achievement of your goals. You are no longer excited in trying new things. Soon, your life becomes really dry and you won’t see the meaning of everything that you do.

“Step so far outside your comfort zone that you forget how to get back.”

5. It is about following your heart

Take a moment to reflect and think about the plan that you had right from the start. Is it really what you want, or are you just doing it because it is how success was defined by people around you? Delve deeper and listen to your heart.

You might be on a path that you don’t really want, but you are forced to be in. Listen to your heart’s desires and this will make you a better person. Learn how to follow your passion and let your heart guide you to the right path.

Ultimately, you will only feel happy if you know that you are doing what you really love. You will even learn how to not obsess on a goal because you are just savoring every moment in your life. You will also realize that whether or not you will achieve something really big, you will be just as happy and fulfilled.

Important reminders:

When traveling, don’t think about your social media posts, take photos for yourself and not for others. Better yet, take photos only when you have already cherished the place.

Learn how to appreciate the small things. Take a pause just to smell the fresh flowers on your way to work. Appreciate the smiles of children heading to school. Be happy that you still have a job and you have something important to do for the day.

Say thank you to people around you even for the smallest things that they have done. Always let them know just how much you appreciate them.

Create smaller goals in life. If you really cannot let go of the idea that there is a bigger plan to achieve, create smaller objectives that are achievable on a daily or weekly basis.

Give yourself time to reflect and just be quiet. Amid the bustling noise in the city or the stressful nature of your work, you still need time to take a pause and just be quiet for a few minutes each day. This allows you to enjoy the moment and look back at all the positive things that happened during the day.

Don’t be defined by one definition of success. You can always find success even in the smallest things. You must have different sources of happiness and don’t let yourself be tied up to one goal as it could be really heartbreaking should you not achieve that goal. Just be you and do what you do best.

How do you define success? Comment below as we are curious to know!

Just Failed? Lift Yourself Up With These 5 Encouraging Thoughts

Have you had a failure that made you not want to get out of bed? I’ve just come back from a public speaking contest where I was unable to make the next round. I practiced hard but was unable to come up with a satisfying message. I worked hard but it felt like my efforts were wasted.

I wanted to redeem myself immediately but knew I couldn’t. I would have to wait and live with the negative feelings for a year until the next contest. Big failures crush your self-esteem, your confidence and your drive. Your morale is depleted and you question your goals and your self-worth. Getting out of bed hurts and you don’t want to try again.

While staying in bed sounds nice, you have to get up. Even with failure stinging your heart, you have to keep moving towards the future.

Motivating yourself again is tough but here are a few things you can tell yourself to feel positive again:

1. Failure Was Bound To Happen

Everyone wants to avoid failure, but you cannot be successful without it. The road to success has a few failures, it’s unavoidable. Success is not the smooth journey people make it out to be.

Before my loss, I had been winning at other public speaking contests. I did get the feeling of invincibility, but unfortunately I knew this would not last. As much as I hate failure, it is part of life. You can’t keep succeeding without encountering failure. You were going to fail eventually. It doesn’t mean that you deliberately tried to fail, but it had to happen at some point.

“Success is measured by how high you bounce when you hit bottom.” – George S. Patton

2. There Will Be A Second Chance

Unless you quit chasing your dreams entirely, there will always be another chance to try again. It is difficult to accept after a big failure, but deep down you know it is true. Even though I lost the contest, I knew there would be another one next year. It’s a long wait but I would be able to compete and hopefully succeed where I previously failed. Life is long enough that there are multiple opportunities to reach your goal. Things can change and you may not be facing the same landscape that you faced before, but that doesn’t mean success is gone forever.

3. There Might Be Something To Learn

As much as we like learning from our successes, our failures still have lessons they can teach us. Revisiting your failure might give you insight into why things went the way they did, and how you can stop it from happening the next time. Failed to prepare as much as you believed? Attention divided due to other issues? Underestimated the obstacles you had to overcome?

I’ve done all of these and more, which has resulted in failures that I’m not proud of. I still take a look to see what I can change next time. Looking at these mistakes and being honest with myself hurts, but it helps me learn what I can do differently. Don’t let the opportunity to learn pass you by because it’s painful to reflect. If you know there is something you can do to improve, take it as a learning experience.

4. Stop Thinking “That Should Be Me”

I should have landed that sale. I should be the one holding the trophy. I should be experiencing success instead of that person. It’s easy to fall into that line of thinking, especially if you were extremely close to succeeding. You can’t help but think you deserve success instead of failure, but this traps you in the past. It makes you reimagine your failure into success, and it feels wonderful. You want to live in that world.

It’s not a good thought to have. By believing that you should have succeeded, you’re not moving forward. Your mind will be replaying that moment, convincing you that everyone else was wrong and you were right. It’s hard to resist and you will inevitably have that thought, but success is not about thinking about what should have been. It’s about working on what could be.

5. You Are More Than Your Failures

After failing at something you put all your effort in, you can feel pathetic. You would not have failed if you were competent, if you were the person you said you were. But since you didn’t succeed, you must not be as great as you thought. Public speaking is my specialty, and I am upset when I fail. I feel that if I’m not good at my specialty, I’m a failure. If I can’t be the best speaker in the room, my entire worth as a human is non-existent.

But failing doesn’t mean you’re incompetent. Everyone fails, even the successful people you idolize. Failing doesn’t mean you’re doomed to mediocrity, it just means that you have more work to do. You have succeeded before, which means you’re not as bad as you believe. Failure is not representative of your ability. You may have to change, but you never lost your potential.

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein

I’ve had to live with my failures for a long time, but every time I licked my wounds and prepared myself for the next opportunity to succeed. Failure always hurts, especially if it’s big. You question your ability and your chances to succeed in the future.

The good news is, there will always be another time to succeed. Failing is part of life, it happens, but you don’t have to fail the same way twice. Learn from your failures, know that it doesn’t define your ability and get your head out of the past. You didn’t succeed today, but there’s always tomorrow.

How do you recover from failure? Comment below!

4 Steps to Help You Create Radical Momentum in Your Life

Do you ever find yourself with a goal in mind and you know the actions needed to get there, but you just can’t seem to get yourself to act on them? Positive momentum is what propels you to act effortlessly. Momentum first starts in the mind. Like everything around us, it begins as a thought and ends as a tangible success.

Implementing the following steps will not only make reaching your goal more fun, super rewarding, and easier, but it will also make the journey the best part:

1. Get yourself in a great feeling state

Whenever you want to create new momentum in a venture, the first step is always to get into a great feeling state. It is the most effective way to open up neural pathways and creativity in your mind. Humans naturally gravitate toward the subjects in their life that feel the best. Use positive emotion to saturate the idea of what you want.

That simple task will create a magnetic pull in your mind to what you desire. The most fertile place to plant the seed of this new idea is excitement! Every positive emotion about what you want waters it and helps it blossom. Meditation and breathing exercises are powerful techniques that foster the clean mental slate needed to create.

Tim Ferriss described that 80% of top performers in athletics, entertainment, and business employ daily meditation practices. Put happiness first. The best part of the process is dreaming about your destination. It’s the desire that we get the most juice. Once you get there you’ll feel like “Now what?” and a new desire will be there to take its place.

“Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.” – Colin Powell

2. Go directly to the end goal

From a positive state, program where you desire to go into your mind. Visualize a clear destination. The clearer your mind can see it while maintaining that positive state, the more powerful the answer will light up within your brain. Inspiration comes from the excitement of mentally transporting yourself to the actualized achievement.

See it as a movie in your mind. Virtually see yourself there, feeling the positive emotions for as long as it feels good. Extensive airtime dreaming about your desire creates the momentum. Write notes as if you have what you want in the present tense. Say it as if you have acquired it already to begin conditioning your subconscious mind and emotions into the feeling of having it.

The wheels will begin turning because now your dream will have a minor physical representation of itself. This conditioning will eliminate sabotage and will instill a feeling of deservability the more it is done.

3. Appreciation as fuel

Appreciation is the greatest internal motivator. Whatever you appreciate the crap out of, you create more of. The more you dream about the desired outcome, the more compelled you will be to take action and the more often positive things will come your way. If you appreciate them, they will grow. The milestones will grow and your momentum will exponentially increase.

The inspiration for better ideas will flow to you along with far more energy to act on them. Steve Jobs said, “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” Appreciation is the path to loving every part of the journey. Being thankful for all positive gifts coming your way will condition you to receive vastly more.

You want to keep your inner monologue pure. The more you think and talk about something, the more momentum gets created. If you create negative momentum, it will work against you. If you begin to think negative thoughts about your desired outcome, it will begin to feel like stress. When it feels like stress, you won’t feel like taking action. That’s why appreciation is so vital- it will always help you feel good about your goal making the inspired action feel effortless.

“Change your expectation for appreciation and the world changes instantly.” – Tony Robbins

4. Letting it go

Overthinking kills momentum faster than anything. Give yourself a reprieve; life is about so much more than your goal anyway. Letting the subject go will bring a freshness to it in return. You avoid burnout and best of all create a more fulfilling life in other areas. Guiding your mind toward completely unrelated subjects will reset and refill your mental facilities.

Give yourself peace to find the clarity necessary to make the ideal decisions. This can come in the form of working out, taking a walk, going somewhere new, or anything that stimulates a different part of you!

Part of letting it go means keeping your ideas to yourself until they are solid in your mind. This allows them to stay clean from outside influence. Let go of the need to share your ideas before the momentum is powerful. The last component is taking each action in faith that you are on the way to your desire. Because what you are seeking, is also seeking you.

What are some things you do to create momentum in your life? Share with us below!